Air Force Buys High, Sells Low Taxpayer-Funded Surplus Is Going, Going, Gone

Aging computers sold for $2 a pop. Hardback books went for a dime each. A “Powershred” paper shredder sold for $32.50.

But the best steals at the Fairchild Air Force Base auction Tuesday were new items still in boxes - surplus equipment the Pentagon bought but never needed.

Much of the unused merchandise was exotic electronic devices and hardware, sometimes worth thousands of dollars and usually sold to bidders for pocket money.

Other new equipment was more commonplace, such as a massive air-conditioning unit, pressure-wrapped and stored in crates.

“God, I hope you were looking at this beauty,” said auctioneer Bob Coburn, prodding the 138 bidders to make an offer on the cooler.

It sold for $550.

A salesman for Air Rover Co., the Texas manufacturer of the air conditioner, said the machine is far from obsolete. “I sell them every day,” he said.

The price? $6,800.

Fairchild holds surplus auctions every other month to flush its warehouses of excess equipment. Taxpayer advocates often criticize government auctions for getting such a small return on public investments.

Tuesday’s sale collected $18,499, which base officials considered a good haul. But the windfall is a tiny fraction of what the public initially paid for the supplies.

The Air Force spent $32,930 buying five “solenoid relays” that were put up to bid Tuesday, receipts show. The expensive electronic devices were still in their packages and went largely unnoticed in a jumble of other hardware that sold for $100.

Pete Sepp, vice president of the National Taxpayers’ Union, said surplus auctions have long been a wasteful side effect of the federal government’s reckless spending.

“Often very valuable commodities are given away at very cheap prices - at pennies on the tax dollar,” Sepp said.

But he also said government officials running the auctions are in a bind. “The problem is there’s often not enough bidders. And what do they do if they don’t sell it? Sometimes it costs more to haul it away and store it in a warehouse.”

Chadyne Helms, chief of Fairchild’s Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office, said her staff is swamped with surplus during these days of military downsizing and mission changes. “There’s only five of us here,” she explained. “And we do our best.”

Helms called Tuesday’s crowd “a real good turnout.” She also said Fairchild will soon better market its surplus by listing an auction catalog on the Internet’s World Wide Web.

At the auction, it was clear most people weren’t aware of the potential value of some of the equipment - or just weren’t interested.

Included in a stack of still-packaged engine equipment were four “strainer sediment fuel” filters, the Air Force bought for $843 a pop.

The lot sold for $140. “And that’s the buy of the day,” said Coburn, the auctioneer.

Actually, the best buy may have come a little later when someone paid $100 for a pallet of unused equipment that cost the Air Force at least $50,000.

Coburn didn’t claim to be familiar with all the equipment either. When it came to lot No. 85, he said, “It’s a Spirometric Test System, and it’s a beauty…no matter what it does. How about $200? Just to play with it.”

The used lung testing equipment sold for $65.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Such a deal Some of the deals at Tuesday’s auction at Fairchild Air Force Base: Heavy-duty commercial refrigerator. New: $2,907. At auction: $340. 44 Unisys printers. New: price unavailable. At auction: $87.50 for all 44. Five “fuseholder extractos,” still sealed in packages. New: $17,665. At auction: $100. Hot meal cart. New: $5,000. At auction: $50. Medical equipment for premature babies. New: $18,000. At auction: couldn’t get $75 bid, withdrawn from sale.